Effectively Using Social Media In Your Business: Part 2- Finding Out What Your Customers Need.

You must get your products and services into the hands of your customers. In exchange for your products and services, your customers will give you some sort of compensation. There are 5 critical things that you need to do in order to make this happen.

You must:

Find your customers or make it easy for them to find you.

Find out what your customers need.

Inform, educate and convince your customers that you can meet their needs.

Deliver your product/service in way that suits your customer.

Have systems in place to receive compensation.

In this article, we will discuss the second item, finding out what your customers need.

This is a cornerstone of business philosophy that many have forgotten. We often try to put the proverbial cart before the horse on this one. We may feel inspired to develop a great product or service that will solve a big problem or answer a troubling question for someone. After we do the work of putting everything together, we present to the world our great new invention. We position our product on Amazon or flood the inboxes of our email subscribers with invitations to purchase our latest and greatest program. Then we discover a new problem; no one is jumping to buy.

We may have solved a great problem and answered a huge question but we must find the people who have that great problem or need an answer to that huge question. We often solve problems that our market doesn’t see as a problem. We are answering questions that no one is asking.

We must find out what our customers need. What are the problems that they are actually having? What questions are they actually asking?

One way to find out is to listen to what your customers are saying in forums and social media groups. LinkedIn groups are an excellent way to find out what your customers are looking for. Many professionals will tend to join group where their colleagues are. That is fine and there is a lot to be learned from our colleagues. However, the real marketing power behind LinkedIn Groups is joining the groups that your customers are in. These are the people you are trying to sell to.

With that said, let me stress the importance of etiquette in groups, Do not join a LinkedIn group one day and start trying to sell your stuff the next. Most groups have strict policies about self-promoting and you will be banned quickly for not adhering to these. Make sure you read the group policies before you start posting. Also, do not go in there acting like a “know it all.” This is a place to network and learn. I suggest that you start out slowly in terms of posting. By all means, make an introduction, particularly if there is an introduction thread. However, look and listen to see what others are saying first.

Once you find out what your market is asking for, you can better develop products and services that will answer the questions that they actually have.